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Fountains, ponds, pools and other water features at the Chelsea Flower Show 2013

At the Chelsea Flower Show, it is a well-accepted principle that ‘a small garden needs a water feature’. This year, I noticed the usual number of ponds but fewer fountains. Could the explanation be that after two very wet years people are fed up to the back teeth with the sound of falling water?
The difference between a pool and a pond is as follows: a pond is ‘a small body of still water of artificial formation, made either by excavating a hollow in the ground or by embanking and damming up a watercourse in a natural hollow’. Pond derives from ‘pound’, as in ‘impounded water’. ‘Pool’ is an old Germanic word of uncertain origin meaning ‘a small body of still or standing water, esp. one of natural formation’. So those rectangular blue-tiled places we use for swimming should be called ‘swimming ponds’ – not pools. And the water bodies on display at Chelsea should be called ‘ponds’. The water in many of the examples on display was tinted black or brown. This makes it more reflective, and hides any under-water pumping equipment, but the water looks as though it has been ejected from a frightened octopus. Steel pools are also popular but, even if made with Corten steel, can be expected to have rust-brown water for many years. Phil Johnson’s Trailfinders Australian Garden won the Best in Show award with one of the most naturalistic (and expensive) water features I have seen at Chelsea. The design idea dates from c1800 but the implementation is modern.

Glad you liked the video. I am begining to wonder if I should give up taking still images. There seems no need for larger than HD images and you get such a good selection from a video camera.
For a design historian, if no one else, it is difficult to be believe in ‘new’ ideas: every idea seems to have precedents if you search them out. Maybe it is just the old adage that ‘there is nothing new under the sun’. I agree about simplicity in water features.

As a design historian I wonder if you detect any changes in what designers are trying to say, either about the society in which they exist, or as a reflection of their own view on life. Does the plethora of attempts to ignore nature’s rules as often seen in concept gardens say anything or the trend to intellectualize landscapes/gardens instead of designing with romance in mind ?

In the 40 or so years I have been visiting Chelsea (not every year, of course) I have noted (1) a swing from 1960s Arts and Crafts to the type of mainstream modernism which garden designers ‘should’ have been doing in the 1930s (2) a fair amount of non-doctrinaire dabbling in postmodernism since c2000 (3) a slight improvement in the textual descriptions in the published designer’s accounts of ‘what they are trying to say’. But I think the designer accounts remain very weak which leads me to conclude that most of them are not well-informed about their positions in design history and very muddled at the conceptual level. This is a pity!

Tom, I am wondering whether garden designers have a strong tradition of considering the design theory behind their work? Perhaps they usually are more subconsciously influenced by what is going on around them than in responding in a theoretical sense and articulating a design position (which would then locate them within design history)?

In terms of architectural movements – after flirting with critical regionalism – a minimalist position marked a return to modernist sensibilities and a revisiting of the idea of an international style.

Sometimes there is a difference between what designers are trying to do and what they are trying to say.

They don’t! It is their chief weakness. The main idea is to treat plants, and materials, as a ‘palette’ and to choose textures and patterns to create ???? – the best term I can think of is ‘visual effects’.
I am interested in the difference between ‘ what designers are trying to do and what they are trying to say’. Please could you say more about it.

To some degree you have illustrated the difference at its most basic level. What the designers are trying to ‘do’ from your example is ‘to create (presumably new and interesting) visual effects’. Some perhaps are trying to say something about ‘sustainability’ or ‘english garden traditions’ or ‘the Australian lifestyle’, with varying degrees of articulation.

I think you are right about what most water feature designers (and those in the Chelsea video) are aiming to do. And I would much rather they employed the axiom that ‘form follows function’ and used it to create aesthetic qualities which ALSO achieve functional objectives.
Re Trailfinders/Flemmings Australian waterfall, the only functional objective I can think of is ‘air cooling’ and since it involves a heavy use of water and electricity I do not think it is a ‘functional’ way of achieving this ‘functional objective’.

We need to do a deal: you can have some of our perpetual rain and we want more sun in the UK. People are talking about a 15-month winter and pointing to the melting of Arctic ice as a possible cause of the abnormality.

All we need is patience, though we may need rather a lot of it. Some of the rocks in Scotland (the Old Red Sandstone) are red because they were formed in desert conditions when the tectonic plate which formed the land was crossing the equator. If it is happened before – it can happen again. That’s what I always say.

I am not sure what to do about the UK lack of sunshine and presence of rain, rather than to attempt to find all the ways to make it enjoyable and recommend weekends and holidays away in hot weather countries.

If you could collect the excess rain water and use it judiciously (ie. for fountains and other water features during the summer months) it would be a valuable commodity.

However, if we are talking about climate change – natural and manmade – if it is natural there is little we can do but adapt, whereas if it is manmade we have more of a choice!

So, perhaps the best idea is to collect funds for climate change research in the wet and cold weather, because Londoners are less likely to rue the heat waves!

The extra rain is good for gardens and good for the land. The depressing thing is the leaden skies. What we REALLY REALLY want is to find a way of making the rain fall during the hours of darkness, so that the sun can shine in daytime.
I read a World Bank report on climate change this morning ( Turn down the heat ) and found myself becoming less-convinced about the problem. This feeling probably resulted from a sense that they are over-stating the case. It reminds me of all those books and reports in the 1970s predicting that we were CERTAIN to run out of oil within the decade. People are still writing these reports and one has to wonder if there are university courses in writing such reports. Of course, the Earth WILL run out of oil – and if it had happened in the 1970s then, presumably, we would not have the present worry about climate change. As Nils Bohr remarked “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.”

Researching into peak oil was very interesting. Many countries that found they had energy security problems at this time acted, not only because of the predicted scarcity, but also to secure control of their energy future. Denmark, one of the most advanced renewable energy countries was one of those that took action on peak oil well before climate change was on the agenda.

It is the tone of the articles about about climate change which make me suspicious. Scientists should have open minds and acknowledge each other’s points in a spirit of enquiry. For the climate change now, as for the 1970s peak oil debate, the doomsters are adopting a moral position and raining obloquy on the dissenters.
Wind farms are great for soaking up subsidies but no calculation has shown them to have the remotest chance of saving the planet from climate change.
Very interesting re green skies and intuitively correct to me. I do not know of any research into the subject but I have often noticed that the sky has something odd about it before it deposits something very unusual on the patient earth.
That pic of an old Caddy could do with the attention of a skilled cultural critic. Tom Wolfe or Charles Jencks would do. Compared to an old Rolls, it is classless – just like any other car, but bigger. But I do not, remotely, buy into that line about England being a class-ridden society and American society being class-free. As Gore Vidal emphasised, American politics is dominated by old families and they have powerful arrangements for keeping wealth in families and their scions prefer marrying each other.

It is probably less a problem for Denmark whether wind farms deliver climate change benefits as they have had the effect of giving them energy security.

It would be good to see some sky research to assist with climate change research, as the more information the better, and over time it will become less an argument on opinion and more an argument based on accepted fact. The problem at present is that there are so many unknowns.

Yes, I am sure you are right that America is not a classless society, it is probably more the case that class is constructed differently. It is good to know that Obama is not from an old political family and has not married into one, as equally as it is good to know that it is possible for there to be a George Bush and a George W Bush as President. That neither is excluded from being President in America is the best news of all.

Yes: energy security is desirable and I agree about more research into climate change PROVIDING all the researchers agree to take linguistic care about the distinction between anthropogenic and natural climate change. They slag of ‘climate change deniers’ who are, in reality, questioning the balance between the two causes.
There was a good verbal exchange ub 1963 when Harold Wilson called the former Lord Home ‘the fourteenth Earl of Home’ and the former earl replied by describing him as ‘the fournteenth Mr Wilson’.

Yes, it would be good to see research into (1) natural climate change and (2) anthropogenic climate change and (3) the interactions between the two. With as clear as possible distinctions made into which of these three categories the phenomenon/research/conclusions belongs to.

It seems that the exchange between the two men does reflect the situation in the US. As far as I am aware men (maybe women?) are named snr and jnr, before being numbered the first (1), second (2) and third (3) etc. [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy,_Jr. ]

I think researchers work on all three topics. The problem for me is that when they make media appearances they speak as politicians and say we have ‘got’ to combat all climate change. OK if we could but the surely the only realistic prospect is combating anthropogenic climate change.

There may be connections between anthropogenic climate change and natural climate change if we consider natural climate change phenomena to be cyclones, tsunamis, earthquakes, flood events, landslips etc. There may need to be some definitional clarification to make the conversation clearer – even if these definitions change as we become more knowledgeable.